


of course you couldn't know, it was you and you alone

by kathikon



Series: strawberry blond [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Emotions, Episode: s01e06 Stay Frosty, Fluff, Happy Ending, Homophobic Language, Improper Use of a Ranger Grave, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, Light-Hearted, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Military Homophobia, Pining, Sleepy Cuddles, Tenderness, mostly happy, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25875100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathikon/pseuds/kathikon
Summary: They weren’t evendoinganything and somehow this made him feel more exposed than anything he’d ever felt before, like Walt had flayed his skin away, laid all his secrets and nerves bare in the chilled night air, and his breath hitched something desperate as it caught in his throat.There was something in those blue eyes that he didn’t understand, but James had never been good with people anyways.
Relationships: Walt Hasser/James Trombley
Series: strawberry blond [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877992
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	of course you couldn't know, it was you and you alone

**Author's Note:**

> title from dan the dancer — mitski
> 
> No disrespect/assumptions are being made about any real people. This is a work of fiction based on the HBO Miniseries starring Pawel Szjada, Billy Lush, and others.

James knew there was a fundamental difference between him and Walt, because Walt felt bad about things, about shooting the man in the blue car, and James didn’t feel bad about anything he’d done. 

Not the things he was supposed to feel bad about, at least.

When he’d pulled the trigger that day at the airfield, he’d been reminded of hunting with his dad as a kid, shooting deer.

He’d felt lucky, like he’d gotten a prize, an Easter egg.

He’d wanted to see what he’d done.

But Walt... he wasn’t like that.

He was kinder than James— not softer, because they were goddamn Recon Marines and Recon Marines weren’t _soft—_ and his actions affected everyone in a way that James’ never did.

Everyone liked Walt, liked him and his crooked smile and his low voice crooning out Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash.

Even Sergeant Colbert made an exception to the ‘No Country Music’ rule for Hasser, and on days where the wind wasn’t too bad and the Mark-19 didn’t get all jammed up, James could sometimes hear him too, when Corporal Person wasn’t wailing out some horrible jumble of words masquerading as music.

James missed it, and he didn’t even _like_ country music.

But he certainly liked it when Walt Hasser was singing country music.

After Al Muwaffaqiyah, Walt had stopped, and it felt _off,_ an almost guilty air at the fact that James didn’t feel bad about what he’d done.

A lot of things did make him feel guilty these days though. It wasn’t a feeling he was used to, or one what he liked, but the kids playing in the dirty streets, injured civilians, the misery of the other Marines, they all made him feel uncharacteristically bad.

He hated the feeling, the roiling pit of sickness in the base of his stomach, almost more than he hated himself for the one thing that really _did_ make him guilty and disgusted with himself.

Out of habit, James reached up to itch at his eye, though the infection had long since cleared up. If only the _want_ he felt would go away too, but he supposed he couldn’t get too lucky after all.

He sat in his grave in the field outside of Baghdad, stomach full of canned Ravioli and thought about his wife, but with a start realised he didn’t actually remember what Lucrecia looked like, not all the way.

Sure, there was a vague concept of her face, long dark hair, chapstick that smelled like cherry coke, long eyelashes and little hands, but the details were blurry. It seemed like these days, he hardly thought of her. At first, he’d thought it was a combat stress reaction, but as the invasion continued, it’d started to sink in that he thought about Walt more.

If James closed his eyes he could see every detail, the silvery curved scar beneath Walt’s lower lip, the way he poked his tongue out between his teeth, squinting in the Iraqi sunshine with one side of his mouth pulled up more than the other.

And it all made everything that much worse.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even realise Walt was there until he was practically on top of James, squeezing into his grave next to him, dropping an MRE into his lap.

James just froze, a deer in the headlights for a heartbeat until Walt was settling his weight next to James in the cramped space of the ranger grave, their thighs brushing.

“Hey.” Walt’s voice was tiny, so soft it hurt, James’ chest tightening in response as he held the plastic-wrapped package in his hands. It was too dark to see what the entree was, and he didn’t bother turning on his red light headlamp, just feeling the press of Walt’s knee just above his own.

“Hey,” he whispered back, turning to look at the other Marine properly, though it didn’t do much, what with the moon hidden mostly by columns of smoke billowing from Baghdad, so close he could almost hear the life within the city. “How are you doing?”

Walt paused, thinking before he switched on a red light, using his Ka-Bar to open up the plastic of his MRE neatly. “Better, I think.” He shrugged, and their shoulders bumped for a moment, and James realised, alarmingly, this was the first time they’d actually _talked_ since the airfield, more than just a passing moment of conversation. “Not good, but better.”

“It’s hard to be upset when Corporal Person’s got Chef Boyardee on his toes,” James agreed, nudging Walt with his elbow and a lopsided grin, tearing into the seal of the MRE to pull it open.

In the glow of Walt’s headlamp, he could read the label now. They’d finally gotten resupplied, adding some variety to the Humrats, Spaghetti and Beef Patty MRES, and anything else they could scrounge up thus far into the invasion.

“I’ll trade you my jalapeno cheese for your peanut butter,” he offered, like he didn’t know Walt was allergic to peanuts. The little brown packages traded hands in an easy silence, and they ate in the same quiet, even with the low hum of chatter of the rest of the platoon around them.

They sat there for a little bit after they’d finished, James picking at his pound cake as Walt smeared cheese spread on crackers, sucking a bit off his thumb before he spoke again.

“You can call everyone by their first names, you know.”

James shrugged, digging his knuckles into the bone of his eye socket as he itched at his eye. “Feels weird. Nobody calls me by _my_ first name, so…” he trailed off. “Does it matter?”

Walt laughed, for real this time. “I guess it doesn’t,” he conceded after a moment of thinking before he was reaching out. Walt’s fingers were warm and calloused when he pulled James’ hand away from his face, away from his eye.

In the darkness, he prayed that Walt couldn’t see the way his ears burned, almost shaking when Walt’s other hand curled over his jaw, digging into the soft flesh below his ear. He couldn’t bear to look, the confused guilt and revulsion bubbling up somewhere in his chest.

“James.” Walt’s voice pulled him back to the moment, soft. Nobody called him by his first name, except, now Walt Hasser did. “Look at me.” The moonlight behind James cast a shadow in his shape across Walt’s face, blue eyes shining silver in a thin ring around his wide pupils.

Just a moment ago, he couldn’t bring himself to look, and yet now he couldn’t look away, drinking in the open look on Walt’s face that he couldn’t quite read, the red headlamp throwing soft shadows over everything.

He opened his mouth to say something and then all at once the world stopped making sense.

It felt _wrong_ , when Walt ducked forward and crushed their lips together, dry and chaste. James froze up for a second before he was kissing him back, gripping at the front of Walt’s flak vest, fingers digging into the meat of Walt’s chest, just below his armpits, nails sinking into the muscle there.

It couldn’t have been more than a heartbeat even though it felt like a lifetime when they pulled apart, all wide eyes as James squirmed back, boots scrabbling in the dirt as he let go of Walt’s flak, chest heaving as the panic set in.

“What the _fuck_ .” His voice was hardly more than a breath when he managed to speak, the nausea rising up violent in his gut, head starting to ache behind his eyes as he drew his knees up to his chest. “I’m not a _faggot,_ ” he snarled, trying to put everything he felt for himself in that moment into the words, but there was no heat in it, just came out weak and strangled.

  
Hot tears made his eyes sting and he wiped them away with the back of his hand, sniffling almost pathetically. “I’m not.” James fought back tears even as he slumped forwards into Walt’s arms, breathing hard into his chest, shaking like a leaf as he clutched at the older Marine’s biceps.

 _And yet I want this._ _Want_ you _._

“I know,” Walt breathed against his temple before he tipped their heads together, noses brushing briefly. “I know,” he repeated and then James kissed him again, soft. Walt tasted vaguely of MRE bean burrito, jalapeno cheese and hot sauce when James opened his mouth for him obediently, tongue brushing the line of his lips.

This wasn’t going to be something he was going to be able to leave in Iraq, he thought, when they were falling back into the hard-packed dirt of James’ grave, all searching hands and chapped lips.

“Why?” he breathed against Walt’s chin, the older Marines’ weight pushing him down into the earth. He wasn’t sure if he was asking himself or Walt anymore.

He closed his eyes, and wondered if this made him a bad person, when Walt’s hands worked his flak open, warm hands untucking his skivvy shirt to run over his stomach, just touching, reverent and gentle, head over his heartbeat. His hair tickled along James’ throat as they laid there, tangled together in a grave too small, enough for if anyone were to come by right now, there’d be no way to explain what was going on.

But he couldn’t find himself caring for the first time in a long time.

They weren’t even _doing_ anything and somehow this made him feel more exposed than anything he’d ever felt before, like Walt had flayed his skin away, laid all his secrets and nerves bare in the chilled night air, and his breath hitched something desperate as it caught in his throat.

There was something in those blue eyes that he didn’t understand, but James had never been good with people anyways.

He wiggled a little, trying to make himself comfortable in the narrow space of his ranger grave as pebbles dug into his back.

“S’ late,” he mumbled, letting his head fall back against the dust. They looked at eachother and Walt smiled a little, slumping down into the tiny space left, still half on top of him as they laid there.

And for once, James didn’t feel bad about whatever _this_ was, and laid there quietly, hands tracing mindless shapes over Walt’s spine through his fatigues until he fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i really said "damn what if i slowly pulled walt/trombley from rarepair hell with my own two hands?” huh, didn’t i?


End file.
